Cat's In The Cradle
by Bakani Banana
Summary: Songfic:


Disclaimer: Or the Eternal Confessions of a Die-Hard Fan.

I don't own anything except my undying love for Rumiko Takahashi's characters and Mr. Steven's song.

Hopefully that will be enough for the legal department.

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When I first met her I knew it was love. Izaiyo had a light about her that could never be matched by anyone else. At the beginning she trembled in awe-struck fear of me like so many humans before her had.

I gave her a spray of sakura blossoms and asked her if she would always watch the blooming of the beautiful trees and remember me fondly.

The gesture touched her deeply. After the passage of time which had no hold on me but held her kind clutched firmly in its grasp, what we had between us blossomed into love much like the sakura in spring.

All love has acts associated with it that are at once intangible and more binding than chains forged by the gods. Such was our love. I remember how my heart sped up when she would draw close because I could hear within her beautiful but mortal body the beating of two hearts.

Izaiyo, you would soon bear my child.

_**My son was born just the other day...**_

I could smell the sharp tang of birth-blood as soon as the first drop was spilt. Your soft cries drove me on through the dank and crowded woods to be at your side beloved.

_**He came to the world in the usual way...**_

How many could claim to have briefly touched the fleshless hand of death before they were even born? None that I can recollect, but our son would have that right.

Petty.

Heartless.

Jealous.

All these things and more describe the monster who wore the face of a man. Who whispered platitudes of undying love like a bilious poison even as he thrust a blade into your yielding flesh.

To arrive at the birth of my child only to scent its death in the wind is a horror surely reserved for the lowest pits of hell.

However, Enma would not have either of you that day.

Tensaiga pulsed once with an echo of your heartbeat that I had come to know so well. You opened your eyes and smiled at me. The blade thrummed again with a tempo that I was unfamiliar with but instinctively knew was my son.

His lusty cry for life warmed my dying heart.

Having thwarted what he saw as mercy, the one who had attempted to slay you dared to challenge me.

Because he loved you Izaiyo, I killed him with a swift mercy he did not deserve.

In the end, I fulfilled my promise to you koi.

I gave my last breath to see you live.

_**But there were planes to catch and bills to pay...**_

Did you know that before I died in the same space as a mere man, I bound a dragon?

You did not and I was no longer alive to tell you of that fabled exploit which would have delighted you.

Oh Izaiyo!

Leaving you alone was one of the hardest thing I'd ever had to do.

_**He learned to walk while I was away...**_

Seeing you die and knowing our son would have to fend for himself was harder still.

_**And soon he started talking before I knew...**_

If I had a fraction of the power that mortals claimed was the birthright of the youkai, I would have come back through some miraculous feat of inhumanity to watch over our child.

_**He said I want to be like you dad. Someday I'm gonna be like you...**_

But all that I could do was to helplessly watch our son.

_**Well the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon...**_

I watched him fight against his heritage.

_**Little boy blue and the man on the moon...**_

I watched him fight against the world.

_**When you coming home dad?**_

I watched him learn to hate the humans that pushed him away.

_**I don't know when, but we'll get together then, yeah...**_

I watched him learn to hate the youkai that hunted him down.

_**You know we'll have a good time then...**_

Oh koibito, I watched him learn to hate himself.

_**My son turned ten just the other day...**_

Did you know that I was there beside you on that lonely birthday Inuyasha? I heard the tears you would only shed inside yourself because you were so alone and so tired of being that way.

You wished for a friend who would not hurt you.

You wished for parents who were a part of your world and not the next.

You wished that wishes came true.

For in the instant that your tired eyes opened to behold the sight of the man coming towards you, you thought that perhaps they really did.

I saw the only remaining link to your heritage before you did my son and though a part of me knew that it would not, still I prayed that it would go well.

_**He said thanks for the ball dad come on let's play...**_

Sesshomaru came to you clothed in snow and blood.

_**Can you teach me to throw?**_

You were so young, so amazed to see another who shared your features even if it was so slight a resemblance. For the first time in a long time you let down your guard and smiled at your brother.

_**I said not today...**_

For his part, the smile was returned.

_**He shook his head and said that's okay...**_

Because you had never met him, you couldn't know the full extent of that apparent sign of welcome.

The brutality of the blow he gave you shocked me as much as it did you. In the depths of my consciousness I imagined that I could feel some small part of your pain. A foolish thought I know, but I could not shake it from my heart.

This time your tears spilled forth freely, but not from the desolate woes of solitude.

These were the newborn tears of a child betrayed.

Betrayed by a one you had never met but had rejected you all the same.

I wanted to demand that he apologize for such an atrocious act, but the dead have no voice with which to make demands of the living.

_**As he walked away with a smile on his face he said I'm gonna be like him yeah...**_

He told you his name, a thing of deadly beauty.

Sesshomaru, the Killing Perfection.

The Killing Circle.

Light and darkness given the form of a man.

I could not find it in myself to feel a sliver of pride for what he had become.

As he watched you curling up around the ball of lead that would remain in your stomach for hour, he told you politely to stay away from the Western Lands because they belonged to him now that I was gone. I wanted to cry aloud because that was the moment you understood.

This creature of beauty and terror was your brother.

And he hated your very existence.

_**You know I'm gonna be like him...**_

I wanted to tell him not to do this.

I wanted to make him show the nobility that he claimed to have.

I wanted him to be a brother where I could not be a father.

Heaven help those that want, for they are twice damned above all others.

_**Well the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon...**_

After that you retreated within yourself and let nothing in. To all the world you were the half-bred demon Inuyasha and you discarded that hardened mask for no one.

_**Little boy blue and the man on the moon...**_

Not the human boy you rescued one time when you thought no one saw.

_**When you coming home dad?**_

Nor the hanyou girl you were too late to save.

_**I don't know when, but we'll get together then, yeah...**_

I wept with along with you when you held her cold form and told her you were sorry.

_**You know we'll have a good time then...**_

My spirit was beside you when you laid that tiny body to rest.

Well hello little one.

Yes, I know he tried his best.

Hmmm?

Yes, I wish I could tell him as well.

Now shush and be still little angel.

I will watch over you both.

_**My son graduated just the other day...**_

On the very day you have achieved manhood, you also obtained a friend. She seemed like a very nice young woman and I wished you well.

_**So much like a man I just had to say...**_

I only wished that your new happiness had not fill me with such foreboding. Unknown to you at the time my son, another loved her.

_**Son I'm proud of you can you sit for a while?**_

Sometimes I saw her glance around as though she could sense me nearby. At such times I left you alone. You were old enough to look after yourself more or less and it gave me time to allay my suspicions.

Kikyo was a wise and beautiful woman, much like your mother.

She loved you deeply, much as Izaiyo had loved me.

But she was loved by a human man as well.

I prayed that my fated history had not cast a grim shadow across your future Inuyasha.

_**He shook his head and he said with a smile...**_

She was loved by another.

Loved passionately.

Loved completely.

Loved obsessively.

I saw a light within the twisted shell of the man named Onigumo that I had not seen since the day of your birth.

_**What I'd really like dad is to borrow the car keys...**_

I wished that I could have warned you son.

I wished that I could have told you of the thorny path which loomed ahead on the journey that you and your miko were about to embark upon.

I wished that the gods had granted me one moment to walk again upon the dust of the earth.

I wished that wishes came true.

My haunted love cast a shadow that was long enough to reach across time and mar you because even though you and your beloved treaded carefully, a jealous love would still doom you both.

_**See you later, can I have ten please?**_

The fouling swamp created by the energies of untold demons drove me away for a long time. I couldn't fathom either the rhyme or reason for the unholy presence of the creatures.

In my foolishness, I assumed that they had come to battle your beloved miko.

I wish that I had been wrong about your love my son.

Oh how I wish I had been wrong.

_**Well the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon...**_

A jealous heart had wrought ruination unto two innocent lives.

_**Little boy blue and the man on the moon...**_

It canonized one as a woman of virtue unequaled who's only crime was her kindness.

_**When you coming home dad?**_

It damned the other to be relegated to the half-forgotten twilight realm of bogeymen and old-wives tales.

_**I don't know when, but we'll get together then, yeah...**_

One of you was cut more deeply than any wound by the thought of a love betrayed.

_**You know we'll have a good time then.**_

The other was ensorcelled to spend eternity held fast to a tree. Asleep but never dreaming, dangling cruelly between the doorways of life and death.

How much of my cursed blood had led to this tragedy?

Why was the love of my lineage doomed to repeat my fate?

I didn't have the answers and I didn't know where to seek them.

Again, I stood beside you and did what I had done all of your life.

I watched over you my son.

_**It's been a long time since my son moved away...**_

I don't know how long I waited for the day you were set free Inuyasha. All I knew was that through the passage of one season to the next I'd hoped for some small sign that the gods had not forsaken you.

You were a good boy at heart, even if you hid that heart from the world.

_**I called him up just the other day...**_

Your mother must have caught the ear of some far-flung deity because when I first saw Kagome, I swore that Kikyo had returned from beyond the grave to release you.

When I went closer my mistake was instantly apparent.

No, not Kikyo.

This girl had seemed different.

Brighter somehow.

I had lived for centuries uncounted Inuyasha but not once had I seen a sight so wondrous as the light which surrounded that young girl.

That she touched the arrow and freed you was a miracle that gladdened my spirit greatly.

If I could, I would have danced.

_**I said I'd like to see you if you don't mind...**_

If I could, I would have smacked you for threatening her.

It seemed that along with my tumultuous love life, you'd also acquired my temperament.

Over time though, you would learn to control it just as I had.

_**He said I'd love to dad if I can find the time...**_

The kitsune was an unusual addition to your life. Before, you had always treated children with an impatient and wary demeanor, but not with him.

As you argued with that child and fought with him almost daily, I noticed that your manner had subtly begin to change. I understood what it was even if you did not.

In your youth you had always dreamed that you had an older brother who looked after you and treated you with more than vehement dismissal.

You had wanted a brother who could guide and protect you.

How curious is the will of the gods that let you become for that cub what you wished for yourself.

I knew in time that you would both be the better for it.

_**You see the new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu...**_

When your path crossed that of the monk Miroku, you found an answer to a question you had not even asked. You learned the name of your enemy and the cause of much of your despair.

Lovely thing that she is, Kagome still echoed your first love too much for your comfort and now you knew who had doomed that burgeoning love with his twisted visions of power.

Naraku.

Aimless before, your life gained a new purpose.

To track that fiend to the ends of the earth and slay him in the name of all that you had lost.

_**But it's sure nice talking to you dad. It's been sure nice talking to you...**_

It filled me with pride to see you wield the sword I had bequeathed unto you. To know that I'd eventually have some small part in helping you vanquish your foe brought a smile to my old soul.

Sometimes in the dead of night, I imagined that you could hear me talking to you, for I do it more than you would think.

Wavering in the boundaries between the worlds of the spirits and the realms of dreams I whispered encouragement and warning.

Once again, I wished that I could speak to you as one man to another.

_**And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me...**_

I knew that you had finally become all that I'd hoped for when you refused to fight the taijiya. Instead of slaying her outright as you would have done a few years before, you talked to her and let your words reach her tortured heart.

With each person you have helped, you have changed.

It gladdens me to see it.

_**He'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like me.**_

Even your supposed rival Kouga was treated with a brash and grudging respect.

I must confess that I shared your sentiment concerning his advances towards Kagome.

It impressed me greatly that you did not kill him the first time he did that.

It impressed me more that you were one of the catalysts which changed him from his human-slaying ways.

I wondered if it would have shocked you to know that in my day, I did that with other youkai as well?

_**Well the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon...**_

Even with your sibling there is more than what can be seen with shallow hearts.

_**Little boy blue and the man on the moon...**_

There is respect beneath his taunting.

There is an honored understanding between you both.

_**When you coming home son?**_

He may speak of hate with his mouth but I can see the other side of what lie within him.

He saw it the first time he met you and I now believe that is what prompted his attack.

_**I don't know when, but we'll get together then, yeah...**_

You will grow into a leader among men my son.

_**You know we'll have a good time then.**_

And I will smile down on you proudly still.

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A/N: I was lying in bed working on Ch. 21 of "I.T.T." when I heard Cat Stevens playing on the radio. (I like for my children to listen to oldies so they can sing a song that won't make my blush in public.)

As I was singing along with it, I could imagine Inu-Papa watching over his wayward son in this fashion. I know that the words don't quite fit with the reflections, but the spirit is the same.

A father's son grows up without him but manages to become like him all the same.


End file.
